


I See Said the Blind Man

by latbfan



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-17
Updated: 2015-05-27
Packaged: 2018-03-23 10:40:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3765094
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/latbfan/pseuds/latbfan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Starts as the missing Scene from Matt's apartment between "Speak of the Devil" (1.9) and "Nelson V. Murdock" (1.10), or Foggy finally meets Hotty McBurner Phone, and continues to add missing/extended scenes as Foggy comes to grips with Matt being the Devil of Hell's Kitchen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. I See Said the Blind Man

"Holy shit, Matt," Hotty McBurner Phone says as she hurries across the living room.

Foggy doesn't get up from his spot next to Matt on the floor because he's too busy pressing the towel into the gaping mess of blood where his side should be. So maybe it's just as well the woman used a key to let herself into Matt's apartment.

Foggy doesn't have key to Matt's apartment, but she does. The woman Matt assured him hadn't worked out, like his beautiful women never work out. He'd actually felt sorry for the guy because he'd seemed to really like this one.

And the hits just keep coming. Awesome.

"Matt?" She pulls on latex gloves as she kneels on the floor. "Matt, can you tell me what happened?"

Hotty McBurner Phone is, not surprisingly, indeed very hot. Of course she is. And apparently she's Dr. Hotty McBurner Phone. This gets more awesome by the second.

Foggy lets her take over towel duty and watches her peer at the hole underneath.

"He's been out of it since I called you, and he hasn't said much. You want to tell me what the hell is going on?"

"Grab that light and bring it over here," she says, nodding towards the bendable halogen. "I need to see."

She's as good as Matt is at not answering the fucking question. Although it does explain the lamp. Foggy has been wondering about that lamp. Actually, this explains all sorts of things. Foggy suddenly thinks he's the one who's been blind to not see any of this before. Matt's his friend and business partner, for heaven's sake. But how was he supposed to know his best friend, his blind best friend, is the Devil of Hell's Kitchen?

Jesus, is Matt even blind?

"Oh, fuck," she curses as the bright light illuminates Matt's blood smeared torso with frightening clarity. "Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. So help me," she says to Matt. "If you die on me, you stupid, stubborn, son-of-a-bitch, I will bring you back just so I can kill you myself." She takes a deep breath, and when she speaks again, it's back in the 'you're going to do exactly what I say' tone. "Help me get his clothes off. We need to keep pressure on this wound."

"What the hell?" Foggy begins to ask again.

"Help me, goddammit," she orders, and Foggy decides his questions will have to wait. He doesn't think she's going to answer any of them anyway.

After Matt's shirt is cut away and thrown to the side, he can't help but gasp in horror. It's much worse than he'd thought. Much, much worse. He thinks maybe he'd be okay with being blind for the rest of his life in exchange for un-seeing Matt's shiny, striated muscles that should be covered up with skin.

It's a good thing he didn't become a butcher after all because he think he may throw up.

"I think I'm going to be sick," he says.

"Don't you dare," she barks at him.

Dr. Hotty McBurner Phone leans even closer to Matt and pulls one of his hands to her face so he knows it's her. Foggy wants to un-see this too. The possessive way she puts her grubby little mitts all over him like she has some kind of right. Like maybe she's done it a thousand times before.

Then again, for all Foggy knows, she has.

"Matt, it's Claire. Matt, I need you to open your eyes for me."

"He's blind," Foggy says. At least he's supposed to be. Foggy's almost positive he is.

"I know that," she snaps, as if Foggy is exceptionally stupid. "Matt, it's Claire. Wake up. I need you to wake up now."

He stirs for the first time since taking that swing that sent Foggy's phone sliding across the living room floor. As soon as he moves, Matt moans and gasps for breath.

"No no," she says. "Don't try to move. But I need your old ships ears for just a second, okay?"

What the hell are old ships ears?

"Matt, you have a major abdominal wound. I need you to listen and tell me if there's any internal bleeding. Are your organs okay?"

"Claire," he whisper-moans as his eyes flutter open.

"Matt, I know, and I'm really sorry, but if you can't do this, we're taking you to the hospital right now. Consequences be damned. I need to know if you're bleeding inside. And don't you fucking lie to me."

Foggy appreciates that she sounds equal parts concerned and pissed off. Maybe even leaning more towards the pissed. He can relate to that.

Matt weakly pats her cheek, just a tiny movement of his fingers, and closes his eyes again, but even Foggy can tell it's not because he passed out. He tilts his head to the side, that thing he does when he's really concentrating, and Dr. Hotty McBurner Phone, Claire, holds her breath while she waits for the hospital or not verdict from old ships ears.

Foggy still doesn't know what the hell old ships ears mean, but he hopes they say Matt goes the hospital because this is madness.

"Good," Matt finally says.

The word is barely out of his mouth before she springs into action, reaching for the bag of medical supplies. She looks inside before muttering "Fuck" again and dumping it unceremoniously onto the floor next to her.

"Broken bones I need to worry about?" she asks Matt.

"No. Just old ships."

Again with the old ships. Who the fuck is this woman and what's the deal with the old ships?

"What about your head? Matt, do you have a concussion? How's your skull?"

"Thick," he says and even offers her a weak smile, handsome bastard, before sighing and giving himself over to the pain.

"Okay," she says, although Foggy can't tell if she's talking to Matt or herself. "Get a pair of gloves," she tells Foggy. "You're going to help."

"Oh, no. Bad idea," he says. "I'm a lawyer."

"Well, tonight you're a trauma nurse. Gloves. Now." Foggy reluctantly pulls them on and kneels next to her on the floor. "Keep that in place," she says. When he replaces his hand on the blood-soaked towel, she presses them down harder, hard enough to make Matt moan.

"I don't want to hurt him," Foggy says.

"Nope. He does that just fine on his own. But we need to get the bleeding stopped. Right now hurt is better than dead. He's going to stay passed out, if he's lucky." While she talks, she is in constant motion. Foggy barely has time to breathe and she has an IV going in Matt's arm with a bag of saline. "He's lost a lot of blood. I'm going to have you hold this up, okay. Gravity. We need to get fluid back into him."

She switches out the towel for a gauze pack and Foggy is quite fine holding a saline bag instead of being responsible for keeping Matt from bleeding to death. The towel makes a wet slap on the hard floor when she tosses it aside, and Foggy thinks he might throw up again.

"Deep breaths," she tells him. "In through your mouth. Count to five. Then slowly out through your nose."

Foggy does as he's told and starts to feel better until Dr. Hotty McBurner Phone, Claire, he reminds herself, her name is Claire, pulls out a sterile suture kit.

"Oh God," he murmurers when he sees the curved needle and thread.

"Just close your eyes if you have to," she calmly says as she begins to sew. "Remember to breathe. In and out, nice and steady. I will kick your ass if you pass out before we get him stabilized."

"Matt once told me he used to stitch up his dad when he was a kid," Foggy said, if only to have something to say, anything to cover up the terrible sound of Matt being stitched back together on his living room floor.

"Uh-huh," Claire agrees, more proof that Matt trusts her with his secrets.

More with the awesome.

"I had no idea stitches sound so. So."

"Wet?" she offers.

"Yeah. Wet. So you're a doctor?"

"He asked the same thing when we met," she says, but doesn't offer any more information. "I need a hand here. You can look. The worst is over." She presses Foggy's hand to the fresh gauze on Matt's side. She wipes the sweat from her forehead with her upper arm in a well-practiced move that keeps her bloodied gloves away from her face before using her elbow to pick through the medical supplies. "There," she says, replacing her hand on the gauze. "A syringe and that vial of antibiotics."

Matt's blood blooms onto the gauze pack, soaking through it in a red swell that looks like one of those abstract paintings.

"No, that's morphine. The other one."

"He doesn't like drugs," Foggy tells her as he hands them over.

"I know," she says again, this time in an irritated tone that tells Foggy this is a conversation she's had before and isn't eager to repeat. Matt must have explained how he feels exposed and disoriented when the world is spinning to her too. Yep, she knows all about Matt. "He'll get over it just this once or he can find himself a new seamstress. But I need to finish cleaning him up and make sure he's stable first."

She pulls back the gauze, and Foggy sees a neat line of black stitches holding Matt's side together. "Clot, damn you," she orders the wound before grabbing another new bandage and taping it securely into place.

Foggy watches as she fills the syringe with medicine and injects it into the IV line. The bag of saline has his bloody handprint on it. There's blood all over the floor. And Claire's clothes. And Matt's clothes. And the towel and stacks of gauze she's tossed to the side. So much blood.

Matt's blood.

"Is he going to be okay?" Foggy whispers.

"You must be Foggy," she says instead of answering.

She moves over to the other side of his stomach and starts sewing up that long cut. It's not as deep, the blood already crusted over and dried along the angry red line. Foggy watches her hands and thinks they're a lot like Matt's, actually. Long and elegant. Skilled. Her fingers gently feel along his skin like she's reading information hidden in his flesh. She ties a final, neat little knot, pulling it tight with metal tweezer-like things, and moves to the gashes in Matt's chest. They didn't seem too serious before, when he was bleeding out of his side. But now the gashes look deep and long and deadly.

My God, what happened? How did he make it back home? How has this much blood ended up on the floor and he's not dead?

"Who the hell are you?" Foggy finally asks again as she sews the much smaller line above the gaping side wound.

"A friend," she says.

"Friends don't usually show up with an emergency room in a bag and perform minor surgery on the living room floor."

She ties a final knot and sits back on her knees, stretching her shoulders until they pop. She prepares another bandage and carefully eases the tape off Matt's side. Foggy thinks it still looks awful, but she nods her approval before securing the clean bandage into place.

"Set that on the chair," she says, nodding towards the IV bag. "And take off his boots." Then those long fingers of hers make short work of Matt's belt and zipper while Foggy tugs off his boots.

She runs her fingers all along Matt's legs, Foggy supposes to check for injuries, but something about it seems like more than that, too. Again, her touch is intimate and possessive. It's as sensual as Matt's fingers moving across someone's face. Foggy can't make himself look away, but watching her makes Foggy's chest somehow both tight and empty. Someone else, someone he doesn't even know, a complete stranger to him but obviously not to Matt, touching his best friend so familiarly and knowledgeably makes him sick too. More with the awesome because he is fucking blind. He doesn't know Matt at all. Not in any way that matters.

"What the holy fuck is going on?" Foggy manages to say through a throat that's too tight.

"Help me turn him over. I think he has injuries on his back, too."

"No," Foggy snaps. "I'm not going to help you until you tell me something. Anything."

"I'm an ER nurse."

"Something I don't already know," Foggy clarifies.

"My name is Claire," she tentatively offers.

"Yeah, not exactly what I was going for."

"I know."

Claire, and even her name is beautiful, Foggy thinks, because of course the woman that doesn't work out has a beautiful name, leans back on her knees again and sighs. She pulls off her gloves the way he's seen doctors do it in the movies, so they're in a neat ball, all the blood and germs and contaminants trapped inside the latex.

"You know who I am," Foggy points out. "You seem to know all about him and this." He points angrily to the black mask on the floor. "When do I get to be up to speed?"

"I'm not going to presume to speak for him," Claire says, and as irritated as Foggy is, he begrudgingly respects her for protecting Matt. Matt never asked him too, but Foggy's been evading questions about his best friend since he met him too.

"Okay," Foggy sighs in defeat. "How do you want to do this?"

"As gently and infrequently as possible," Claire says. "I don't want to put any stress on his abdomen. Let's get him turned over here on the floor, and then we'll move him to the couch. He'll be more comfortable, and I can see to the smaller stuff from up there." She pulls on a fresh pair of gloves. "On the count of three."

Matt moans when they shift him, and Claire is quick to soothe his cheek with one hand while she probes the slices on his back with the other. Matt starts to jerk around, like he's trying to get up and fight them off even though he's more than half dead.

"Get in his face," Claire orders Foggy. "Talk to him. Let him feel you. Let him smell you. He needs to calm down."

"Matty, what the fuck?" Foggy whispers. He takes Matt's hand and puts it on his face, the way Claire had done earlier. It's too cold, Foggy thinks. He's not a doctor, but it must be because of all the blood on the floor. His fingers feel like ice. He gently strokes Matt's hair and watches as Matt's face relaxes.

"Foggy?" he breathes because it's so quiet it's not even a whimper.

"Yeah. I'm here. And just so you know, I'm really pissed off at you. Because we're supposed to be a team, asshole. I'm supposed to be your fucking Goose. What the hell is all this?"

He glances over to see Claire taping another bandage over yet another line of stitches.

"Dude, you're a mess. This is the only time I've ever looked better than you. And fuck you because I can't even enjoy it. Seeing your insides is not my idea of a good time. It's actually making me more than a little sick."

"Can you hand me the glue and surgical tape?" Claire asks Foggy. "This one is shallow enough to get away with it."

Foggy keeps Matt's hand against his cheek as he moves through the dwindling pile of supplies to find what Claire needs. The sharp smell of adhesive reminds him of building models when he was a kid, and Claire's strong fingers hold together the long cut while the glue dries.

"He really cares about you," she quietly says.

"An hour ago, I would have agreed with you, but no offense," Foggy says. "Claire." He spits out her name like a curse. "But since I am completely in the dark here, no blind pun intended, I think I can say with certainty that he doesn't."

Claire finishes taping together the shallower gash and once again takes off her gloves. She takes Foggy's other hand and brings it to rest on Matt's back. Foggy rolls his eyes and tries to pull away, but Claire keeps him in place.

"Feel that?" she asks. Foggy sighs and feels the soft push and pull of air moving through Matt's lungs. "He was in full panic mode a couple minutes ago. Probably would have pulled out half these stitches while he fought us off until he passed out again. Would have done serious damage. And then he heard your voice and felt you next to him. Yeah, he loves you. Bodies don't lie."

"Whatever," Foggy mutters, yanking his hand back.

Claire shrugs, like she doesn't care enough to argue the matter further. "Believe what you want. Let's move him to the couch. Take his head. Try not to jostle him too much."

Foggy and Claire muscle Matt to the couch, Claire managing to keep Matt's torso level the entire time. He hates to admit that he's impressed. Damned impressed, actually. She is impressive, and really nice, and crazy beautiful like all of Matt's women always are, and it is so unfair he wants to drop Matt's head. But Foggy's grateful too, so grateful Claire's here because he wouldn't know what to do to keep Matt from bleeding out onto the floor. He wonders how Matt found her. Maybe he just stood around the ER and waited until someone hot offered to help him. Because something like that would so totally happen to Matt.

And then Foggy has to stroke his hair sand babble at him some more about how mad he is because surely, if Matt can be a masked hero-type, he can play a halfway decent game of intramural softball, because the movement from the floor to the couch is enough to make Matt come to and freak out again. And it pisses him off to see what Claire meant, the way Matt relaxes into Foggy's voice and Foggy's touch. Like he trusts him. But Foggy knows bodies do lie because Matt's has lied. Over and over. For years. Fucking years. Now that it looks like Matt isn't going to die right in front of him, the scales are tipping away from concerned and more towards angry.

He doesn't know jack shit about his best friend.

"Grab him some sweats or pajama pants or something," Claire says when Matt's breathing calmly. She has the adhesive out again and is gluing together cuts on his arms. "And a blanket. The heaviest one you can find. I don't want his core temperature to drop anymore than it already has."

"Does anyone ever argue with you when you use that tone?" Foggy asks as he heads to Matt's bedroom.

"He doesn't listen for shit," she admits.

"Preaching to the choir."

When he comes back with what she asked for, Claire is working on Matt's face. She moves her fingertips slowly around his jaw and across the bridge of his nose and around swelling eye.

"Dammit," she mumbles. "I think his orbital rim is fractured. But I can't tell for sure. Stupid, stubborn asshole."

"Don't want to ruin his pretty face?" Foggy asks. "Because it's not like he has to worry about losing any eye or anything."

She turns and glares at him. "Get an ice pack."

Foggy stands there and glares back.

"Please," she adds.

Foggy tries to win the staring contest, but he quickly gives up and heads to the kitchen. When he comes back with it, she's gluing together a cut along his hairline and carefully adding a line of tape. When that's done, she eases him into the sweatpants, not asking for Foggy's help, and takes a stethoscope to Matt's chest.

He's way too pale, even more so than usual, the drying blood a vicious contrast against his skin.

"Okay, then," she finally whispers, putting her hand on Matt's face like she's the one who needs to feel him to know what he looks like. "Okay."

"Here," Foggy says, interrupting her moment by thrusting the ice pack at her.

"Hold it in place," she says as she gets up to give Foggy her perch on the edge of the sofa. She takes the IV out of Matt's arm before removing her gloves and gathering up her things. "I have to go back to work. We're already understaffed, and long lunches aren't exactly encouraged under the best of circumstances."

For the first time, Foggy realizes she's wearing hospital scrubs.

"Wait. You're leaving? You can't leave."

"I have to go," she repeats.

"What am I supposed to do?" Foggy asks around the rising panic.

"I'm going to give him something to help with the pain," she says. "The best thing I can recommend at this point is rest, since he's too much of an idiot to go to the hospital. He needs to make more red blood cells. Give his body a chance to heal. So he's going to be out for the next several hours."

"You can't leave," Foggy says again.

"He shouldn't wake up for a good long while. At least I hope not." She expertly fills a second syringe and injects Matt with the morphine. "God knows he won't let me do that again anytime soon," she says. "Switch out the ice packs and pay attention to his breathing. Check on that side wound from time to time and make sure the bleeding doesn't start up again."

"Okay. Seriously. You can't leave."

"Seriously, I have to."

"What about Matt? I thought you cared about him."

"He has you," she says with a smile. "Call me if you have any questions."

"I have questions now," Foggy says. "I have a ton of questions."

"Medical questions," she clarifies. "And when he wakes up, if you think of it, please tell him I'll be by later to check on him."

"He said it didn't work out between you. He said you'd gone."

"Yeah," she sighs. "Something like that." She leans over the back of the couch and gently brushes back Matt's hair. "Stupid, stubborn..." she whispers before kissing his forehead. The gesture is so filled with longing and sadness Foggy has to blink back sudden tears.

Matt hadn't lied about that part after all.

"Oh, and Foggy," she says from over her shoulder. "Go easy on him when you kick his ass, okay. I don't want to have to redo all those stitches." She gives him a little smile and walks out the door, leaving Foggy alone except for his many unanswered questions in a war-zone with his drugged, unconscious best friend.

Yeah. This is just awesome.

"I finally see," he says to Matt as he glares at the black mask crumpled on the floor. "I see said the blind man."


	2. Agape

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Foggy spends the night waiting for Matt to wake up.

Foggy wishes sometimes he and Matt could just get married and be done with it already. Because that would be easier, in a lot of ways. To tangle it, them, whatever it is they are, all up together like entwined legs in shared sheets. That would be something people could understand, at least, even if not everyone would approve. And although Foggy definitely likes women, has always liked them, he would gladly exchange them for a lifetime of beginning and ending each day with Matt because he's Matt, and Foggy doesn't want to know who he would be without him.

But it's not that simple. It never has been between them. Foggy doesn't have a word for what Matt is to him. Love is so commonplace. He loves his mother, after all. He was more than a little in love with Marci, and knows enough about himself to realize he could slip back into that role as easily as taking his next breath. He already loves Karen, and after seeing her save Matt, he's kind of even in love with Claire, despite the fact that the very idea of her pisses him off. Foggy loves this city and warm apple crisp and that first cold beer at the end of the day and the feeling he gets when he's set something wrong back right. He loves helping people and singing loudly in a hot shower and the smell of candles and lemon wood polish he associates with tagging along with Matt to Mass. Love is Foggy's nature and first instinct.

But Matt? Matt has always been something all together different.

Foggy sighs and stares down at the face he knows better than his own. Matt grimaces in pain as he unconsciously shifts position on the couch, so Foggy strokes the hair off his forehead and makes the soft shushing sound his mom always made when he was sick and swallows down conflicting urges to hug him and punch him in the face. Foggy runs his thumb against Matt's bottom lip, telling himself it's just because his lip is about the only place not bloodied or bruised, and knowing he can because Matt will never remember this. His touch causes the faintest ghost of a smile to lift the edges of Matt's lips, and Foggy hates him for it.

Stupid Claire and her whole "bodies don't lie" theory because, well, dammit. Just dammit.

Foggy wishes he were flexible enough to kick his own ass when he's done kicking Matt's. How could he have been this stupid? He should have recognized these lips on the news and in the paper because no one else has lips like Matt. Foggy has spent way too many hours, more than he will ever admit to anyone, staring at them, studying them. Foggy's memorized their charmingly deceptive curves and deciphered their minutest movements and translated the vast spectrum of smiles into the thoughts and feelings Matt never wants to speak of aloud.

He should have known these lips anywhere, even underneath a mask in grainy black and white.

Jesus, he has been so fucking blind.

It's still dark, or as dark as Matt's living room ever gets with the billboard's swirling mosaic of cherry blossoms that shifts as steadily as Foggy's emotions, but he knows it's nearing dawn. He can feel the hours that have passed since Claire left in the gritty weight of his eyelids and Matt's increasingly troubled sleep. The morphine's magic is wearing off, and even though he's been going over all the curses and questions in his head, which is useless, really, because there's no way he'll say it right even if he writes it down, Foggy doesn't want him to wake up. Not yet. He's not ready to face the truth: Matt, his Matt, is the masked Devil of Hell's Kitchen.

Matt groans again in his sleep, and Foggy presses a kiss to his forehead. He wonders, his lips lingering on Matt's still too-cool skin, if he looks as heartbroken as Claire when she did this. Foggy hates him for that too.

When Matt's quiet again, his breaths soft and even, Foggy sits back and tucks the blood-stained blanket up under his chin. Jesus. Now that the worst is over, his mind is starting to grasp how close he came to losing him. How many nights has Foggy almost lost him without even knowing that was a distinct possibility? How many times has Matt crawled home to an empty apartment bleeding and hurt and alone?

Foggy's once more overwhelmed with the urge to hit something, preferably part of Matt, so he returns to the chair before he does something he'll regret and wishes there was still a coffee table so he could kick up his feet.

Then again, he wishes lots of things. He wishes he'd gone to medical school so he would've known what to do when he realized it was Matt bleeding out in the living room. He wishes he'd thought to put something down on the floor because who knows how long it will take Matt to realize there's a blood stain in the rug that, despite Karen's words from the bar, doesn't look anything like spilled red wine. It looks exactly like blood. He slouches down into the chair and closes his eyes so he doesn't have to look at it, doesn't have to see the bloodied gauze he hasn't picked up or the mask he left crumpled on the floor like an accusation.

Foggy knows Matt can box, but this, this kung-foo insanity with the mask, is nothing like boxing. And Matt never said a word even though, under different circumstances, Matt has to know Foggy would think his blind best friend kicking ass like a super-hero was about the most awesome thing ever. Foggy considers all the times Matt has turned up tired and bruised in recent weeks. It started, he thinks, about the same time they left Landman and Zack. Matt's decision that seemed to come out of nowhere after how hard they'd both worked to get those jobs. Giving up all the money and prestige in Manhattan to do the right thing here at home. That's when Matt was consumed in the evenings with a sudden busyness and started limping into the office with bruised knuckles and split lips.

He doesn't think it's been going on that long.

Like the timing of it matters! Jesus. He shakes his head, his gaze wandering to the steps leading up to the roof. Matt's precious roof access. His insistence on having his own place. Of course. God, he's been such an idiot, and he hates Matt for it.

It was Matt, he suddenly realizes, who saved Karen from the hitman at her apartment. Matt broke the Union Allied story. Matt rescued that little boy on the news, the one the Russians had taken. He thinks to the other stories of hero-type stuff Karen's been telling him about, the stories circling on the streets, spreading like brush fire through the cafes and bars and laundromats, already with hints of urban legend about them: if you scream in the night in Hell's Kitchen, if you really need him, the masked Devil will hear you. He'll come.

Matt, his Matt, risks his life to save strangers.

Matt did not blow up those buildings. Foggy may not know much, but he knows that. He'll have to ask, of course, more to punish him for his damned secrets than anything else, but Foggy knows he didn't do it. He couldn't have hurt all those people. He couldn't have touched Foggy's stitches with such gentle, worried fingers if he was responsible.

He didn't do that.

And he didn't shoot those cops either. Not the one taken hostage, found bound and executed in the warehouse. Matt couldn't do that. Would never do that. And the other one, the one the news said was shot from a rooftop. No matter how Matt is able to do the things he does, whether it's by sound or smell or whatever, there's no way he can be a sniper and shoot someone from that far away when he's fucking blind. Foggy will have to ask about that too, but he already knows the answer. So there's that.

Which leaves the question of the cops in the alley. Matt, blind, unarmed, and handcuffed, took out three of them. Foggy saw the surveillance footage with his own eyes. That Matt beat those three cops unconscious was, as Matt himself would say if he were speaking to a jury, not in dispute. It was a matter of record. A fact, and a fact states what is, not moral judgment or what we think or how we feel. A fact just is.

Fact: Matt is the Devil of Hell's Kitchen.

Foggy gets up then, shakes his head, and paces in front of the couch. He hates this. All of this. He glares at Matt's bloodied body that Claire had to stitch back together before walking into the kitchen to splash cold water on his face.

He knows he's probably grasping at straws, but he has to believe there was a good reason Matt did what he did to those cops in the alley. Did whatever it is he did to get hurt the way he is. Because Matt is not a monster. He's not a murderer. He's not a terrorist or crazy or evil or any of the other things Foggy has accused since the coverage of the masked Devil first appeared. Matt is... Well, Matt is Matt. They are just that: a them. A shared existence. They are irreparably bound by more than something as simple as love or lust or loyalty.

At least Foggy thought they were. Before this. Before tonight.

* * *

_Matt didn't say anything when Foggy closed their door and leaned against it with a sigh. He just stood up and let Foggy stumble into his waiting arms. Foggy rested his head against Matt's shoulder and vowed he was not going to cry, not even a little bit._

_"Foggy," Matt gently said._

_"It's cool," he mumbled into Matt's neck. It was a stupid thing to say, really, given all the evidence to the contrary. He blinked back the hot tears that threatened to disobey his command to stay put and swallowed several times before he could add, "I'm taking a page out of your book, buddy: it just didn't work out."_

_"Foggy," Matt said again, his voice as soft as a kiss and without any trace of pity._

_Foggy knew he could bawl his eyes out like a baby, or he could rage and throw things against the wall, or both, even, and that would be just fine. Matt would let him do whatever he needed to do, make sure he stayed safe while he was doing it, and be with him on the back-end with a smile and no judgment. Because that's what Matt did. That's who Matt was._

_Foggy closed his eyes and hid his face, breathing the comforting smell of Matt and pretending nothing else in the world existed except for them. Standing here like this felt as safe as coming home, and as long as it was dark and quiet, he could trick himself into believing they were the only survivors of the zombie apocalypse, and that would be a fine reality at the moment. Just them, Foggy and Matt. He didn't need or want anyone else anyway. Foggy rubbed his cheek against the stubble Matt's recently allowed to grow, surprised to find it softer than he imagined. He thought it would be prickly and coarse, as rough as his own unshaven face, but like everything else about Matt, it feels good and just right._

_" No big deal," he finally said when he trusted his voice. "Inevitable, really. Should have seen this coming. Marci was always out of my league."_

_"Don't say that." Foggy felt Matt's words rumbling through his throat as much as he heard them, and he could happily crawl inside his skin and stay there forever. "It takes courage, Foggy, to trust people the way you do. To wear your heart on your sleeve for everyone to see."_

_"It's not courage, Matt. It's just plain stupid, and I would stop if I could."_

_"Never," Matt whispered. "I love that about you." His hand was gentle in Foggy's hair. "It's her loss, Foggy. You're the sweetest, bravest person I've ever known."_

_Foggy pulled back, but only just enough so he could look into Matt's eyes. He was comforted by their not-quite gaze that still somehow managed to see him more clearly than anyone else ever had. Matt would be too much, Foggy thought, if those hazel eyes could focus, could harness all Matt's intensity into a look. If those eyes could light up when Matt smiled, it would surely be as blinding as looking directly at the sun._

_Foggy trusts Matt, but he's wrong. Foggy knows he's not brave because if he were, he'd close the seemingly insurmountable distance between them and just kiss him already. Just this once. So he'd stop wondering and know._

_"What can I do?" he asked, his smile more of a question than anything else. Not for the first time, Foggy wondered if Matt could somehow read his mind. "Tell me."_

_Foggy wet his suddenly dry lips and had to remind himself to not breathe through his mouth right into Matt's face. He squeezed Matt's hip and thought, if only he were as brave as Matt believed, if he could just say what he wanted, Matt would bless him with the smoldering lover's smile Foggy's seen before, just never directed at him, and give him everything that followed it._

_But what if this wasn't what he wanted at all? What if he was confused because he'd never felt so many feelings for anyone, and it's just easier to label it lust because Matt is, well, Matt? What if he ruined everything he wanted for the rest of his life because right now, in this moment, he wanted to know first-hand what Matt's kisses taste like?_

_"Tell me," he said again, and Foggy bit his bottom lip to keep from blurting out exactly what he was thinking._

_He reached up and cupped Matt's cheek, a liberty he'd never taken before. Matt leaned into his touch and hummed a contented smiled. Foggy traced his dimple with his fingertip before weaving his fingers through the soft hair at Matt's temple. He tugged loose a single auburn strand from its hiding place in all the dark brown and imagined how handsome Matt would look in a few years, when gray was added to the mix. Lucky bastard. It'd just make him look even more distinguished, because he obviously didn't have enough distinction already._

_He wanted Matt, but not like this. Foggy thought he was maybe, probably, making a terrible mistake, but he couldn't, wouldn't, risk not working out. Not for anything. Not even for the possibility of Matt himself. Because Foggy knew, more than anything, he wanted him forever._

_"Matt," Foggy finally said._

_His voice transformed Matt's smile into something new, a smile Foggy had never seen before. It was patient and resigned and a little bit sad. They would never speak of this, but Foggy knew he understood. The way Matt always understood._

_Matt nodded, just once, and leaned one more time into Foggy's hand before taking a step back. He pulled his glasses from his shirt pocket and slipped them on along with his easy, distant grin he wore outside their room like armor and shield._

* * *

Foggy splashes one more handful of water in his face, not closing his eyes against the sting, and turns off the tap, letting his face drip into Matt's sink.

He hates this. It'd be nice, he suddenly thinks, if Matt kept something in his apartment for non-blind people to read while they're waiting for morphine to wear off so they can begin their cross-examination of their best friend who's been lying since, well, probably forever. But all he could find, other than books he can't read, is the backlog of Braille Playboys Foggy subscribed to for him as a joke their first Christmas together. Matt had laughed and promised to give him a full review on the articles everyone always insisted were so well-written.

Jesus, he's a shitty friend. Because, fact: all this time, and he doesn't know how to read or write Braille. He can't leave Matt a note, or give him a birthday card, or send him a postcard if he ever went anywhere without him. If he'd been deaf, Foggy wouldn't have hesitated to learn sign language. He took Punjabi, for Christ's sake, for some stupid girl who wouldn't give him the time of day, but he never learned Braille for his best friend. He wishes he had. And he's back to wishing lots of things.

Fact: Matt didn't tell him he's the Devil of Hell's Kitchen.

But for the most part, Foggy hates to admit, he hasn't lied all that much. At least not directly. There was the taking out the trash incident Foggy knows of for sure, the night he drew up their future on a napkin and pledged to follow Matt where ever he led them. But after that, Matt never gave details. "It was my fault," he'd say when Foggy asked what had happened. Or "I should have been more careful." After they were officially partners, Matt actually, technically, hasn't lied except by omission, which surely has to count for something.

Foggy hates him for that too.

Because as soon as he started parsing his words even more carefully that usual, Foggy should've known, dammit, and Matt should have told him. And that's the rub. Selfish as it is to admit, although maybe after the past few hours playing nursemaid he's allowed a little selfishness, Foggy's hurt. He has a right to know. He has a right to worry and tell Matt how stupid and reckless and wrong he is. Not knowing until now, and only finding out on accident and not because Matt chose to tell him, trusted him enough to let him in on the secret, makes Foggy question everything else. He thought their them-ness was a constant, like gravity or pi, but, fact: they are a variable.

His eyes are burning with tears he refuses to let fall when he opens Matt's fridge. He'd meant to grab some juice, but when he sees the avocado sitting there, it's all he can do to keep from screaming and throwing it through a window.

Matt moans again on the couch, and Foggy glances over to see him shifting, his hand coming up over the back for leverage, like the idiot is trying to sit up. He hates this. He hates him, he really does.

Foggy grabs a beer because it's already been a long day even though it technically is just starting and people used to drink beer for breakfast and Matt is the fucking Devil of Hell's Kitchen and just, well, dammit.

"Wouldn't do that, if I were you," he warns before Matt can hurt himself even more.

Matt jumps and groans in pain, and Foggy realizes he thought he was alone. As if Foggy would leave him after he nearly died? He hates him for thinking, even for a second, that Foggy would ever abandon him. For not trusting him. For not telling him. Foggy hates that he didn't know.

Foggy slams the refrigerator door closed and walks back towards the sofa. Towards him. "Then again, maybe I would. The hell do I know about Matt Murdock?"

And isn't that the bitch of it, the crux of this entire revelation: not knowing Matt means Foggy doesn't know anything. Not anymore.


	3. Hesitate

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I lifted some of the show's dialogue, but left out as much as I could since we've all seen it.
> 
> The quote is, in fact, the often misquoted bit from Dante's Inferno, canto 3.

_"Are you okay?" Matt asked again as Foggy fished in his pocket for the key to their room._

_He'd been asking, with increasing frequency, all day, and Foggy was entirely too exhausted and achy to keep lying about it. But he was not getting sick. Not when they had so much to celebrate._

_"I'm already regretting letting you talk me into this haircut," he replied. "And I just spent more money in a single day than I ever have before. In my life. Combined," Foggy continued. "Other than that?" He pushed open their door and dropped his heavy load of packages and sacks onto his bed and tried not to gasp for air while the pain in his head made the room spin. "Dude, I'm walking on sunshine."_

_Matt set down his purchases, pocketed his dark glasses, and walked over to Foggy._

_"What the..." Foggy began when Matt reached up and pressed the back of his hand to Foggy's freshly shaved neck, just below his ear, concern written all over his face. "Don't give me the kicked puppy look, man. You know I can't take it."_

___"You're burning up," he said._

_"You're just feeling the residual hotness from my new suits," Foggy insisted. "All five of them. Damn you and your expensive insistence on propriety and professionalism."_

_"You bought four new suits," Matt corrected as he handed Foggy two Advils and a bottle of water. "I keep telling you, a blazer is not a suit."_

_"Details. Besides, it's better. Two pairs of pants, not one. In case I spill."_

_"Foggy." Matt rolled his eyes, but as soon as Foggy lowered the bottle from his lips, Matt was back at him, his hand on his forehead now. "I should have..." he muttered._

___"Not spent five times as much money as I did on the same number of clothes? Not gone so monochromatic with the new wardrobe? Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. Sure, you said you need everything to match, but I may throw a pink shirt into the mix, just for fun."_

_"Why didn't you say something?" Matt said, not reacting to Foggy's joke._

_"No, man. Procedure stop. Don't be a buzzkill or rain on our parade."_

___"We shouldn't have done this. Not when you're sick."_

_"Matt, buddy, relax. Let me catalog our awesomeness because you seem to be forgetting. We just finished acing finals. We were both asked to be on Law Review in the fall. We won." Foggy couldn't resist pounding Matt's chest in triumph even though the movement made him question his ability to stay upright. "We won the moot court competition when most first-year teams don't even qualify to enter the damn thing. We shocked the hell out of everyone! You should have seen their faces. I wish you had seen their faces, man."_

_"I wish I had too," Matt said. "But I will admit the gasps of horror were the stuff of legend."_

_"We are the stuff of legend," Foggy said. "We just spent more than we will make this summer on fancy clothes for our internship at one of the best firms in the city. We are riding this wave, drinking from this cup of glory, and we are celebrating."_

_"You're sick," Matt repeated._

_"No."_

_"Probably the flu."_

_"I don't get the flu. I never get sick. I am not sick."_

_Matt carefully cleared all the packages from Foggy's bed, and Foggy didn't resist when Matt guided him to it. As soon as his head hit the pillow, Foggy had to close his eyes and swallow back a groan. Jesus, this was not a drill. This was, unfortunately, happening. For-real, sick spins without all the fun memories of drinking to maybe balance it out and make it seem at least partially worth it._

_"We're going out tonight," Foggy insisted even though he knew it couldn't happen as Matt took off his socks and shoes. "I have a grown up haircut for the first time since I've been grown up. I let an old man take a straight razor to my neck. It's a miracle I lived to tell the tale. I'm showing off, dammit. I look good. You would totally agree if you could see me now. I wish you could see me."_

_Matt's fingers found the ends of Foggy's hair that, while much shorter than it was that morning, would still be considerably longer than anyone else's at the firm. Good thing he had the chops to pull it off, or he'd be forced to go all-out Young Republican, and wouldn't that just suck._

_"I like it," Matt quietly said. He fingered it off of Foggy's sweaty forehead and once again smoothed the back of his cool hand across Foggy's cheek._

_"Yeah?" Foggy hadn't realized how much he needed Matt's approval until he offered it._

_"Yeah."_

_Matt reached for Foggy's belt and started unbuckling it. He thought, for just a second, he should protest being treated like a child, or the fact that Matt was undressing him in his bed because, well, awkward on so many levels. But his hands were shaking and the room was still spinning and he didn't think he could find his own feet if he tried._

_"I promise I'm not looking," Matt gently teased as he eased off Foggy's jeans._

_"You're missing out. These are my good boxers." Matt smiled and helped Foggy get comfortable, pulling the blanket up to his chin. "You can still go," Foggy said, and his voice sounded very small and far away. "Without me."_

_"Never."_

_"You should. Celebrate."_

_"I would rather be with you than anywhere else," Matt said. "We will celebrate together. When you feel better."_

_"I want to watch all the movies," Foggy slurred. "And eat all the Cheetos."_

_"Absolutely."_

_"And drink all the beer."_

_"All of it," Matt agreed. Nothing had ever felt as good as Matt's hand resting on Foggy's fevered forehead. "Should I call your mom?"_

_"Hell no. She'll hover."_

_"I'm hovering."_

_"S'different," Foggy sighed. "I want you to hover. I like it when you hover. You hover nicely. Everything about you is nice. Why are you so good to me?"_

_"Do you even need to ask?"_

_"Yeah. I do."_

_As he drifted off in a fevered sleep, he thought he heard Matt whisper, "Because I love you," but he could never be sure if it was a dream._

* * *

 

"Just tell me one thing, Matt," Foggy says, trying to keep from yelling. "Are you even really blind?"

Matt doesn't answer, but his head dips down, and Foggy watches as he swallows. Matt's swallowing like maybe he wants to cry, but fuck him because he doesn't get to have tears. Not now, not when he's never cried before, not in all the years Foggy has known him.

"I never wanted to lie," he finally says. "Not to you."

"Yeah. Save it. We're so far past that."

"It's complicated," Matt quietly admits.

"No," Foggy insists. "It's really not. It's simple: can you see shit or not?"

Foggy has difficultly tracking the words when Matt begins explaining about the accident and the chemicals that blinded him. He talks about the hazy cloud that crept across his vision and blocked out the sky. How grateful he was the last thing he ever saw was a beautiful, blue sky. Foggy tries to understand as Matt describes waking up in the hospital hearing and smelling and feeling the impossible in a fiery world that is somehow the opposite of the perpetual darkness Foggy always imagined Matt lived in.

Foggy sips his beer, holding it in his mouth instead of swallowing right away to keep from screaming "Liar! You fucking liar!" as Matt's explaining about air density and temperature variations and the subtle vibrations that accompany movement. Matt matter of factly recites, in that staccato way he has of speaking, short bursts of simple words. Clipped fragments about sensitivity to smells and textures, as if Foggy hasn't lived with him and doesn't know that already.

Foggy thinks it sounds rehearsed. Memorized, even. Like maybe Matt's practiced telling him about impressionistic paintings of the world around him. Only he never said anything. Until now. Because he has to.

How the fuck does Matt even know what an impressionistic painting looks like anyway, since he was blinded when he was just a kid?

"So you can see?" Foggy finally says after Matt's shpeal, when the silence hums between them with angry tension Foggy can't take anymore.

"That's not," Matt begins. "You're not." He sighs, as if he somehow didn't forfeit his right to be put-out ages ago. Like maybe the second they met and he started bullshitting Foggy. "Are you even listening to what I'm saying?"

"Yeah. World on fire. I got it. But you can see, right?"

"In. In a manner of speaking." He still sounds infuriatingly exasperated. Fuck him.

"No. No manner. How many fingers am I holding up?"

It's a stupid test. Matt knows Foggy. He knows exactly which finger even without air vibrations or whatever the fuck his spidey-senses are picking up that lets him see Foggy's fiery middle finger hovering in front of his face. But Matt looks guilty as his tongue weakly wets his lips. His eyes still don't focus, and Foggy stares at them. Studies them. Tries to see how Matt can possibly see anything, impressionistic or not, when his pupils don't dilate and his eyes don't track or do anything but sit there and look absolutely un-seeing and wet and ashamed.

He really and truly is fucking blind, but he can see Foggy's finger, and he swallows again before whispering, "One."

The word hits Foggy like a fist to the gut. He knew it was coming. He knew. He isn't surprised. Of course Matt knew how many fingers. But he's somehow still shocked. Because Matt is blind, but he can see. He can fucking see. Has always been able to see.

Matt is the Devil of Hell's Kitchen.

Foggy has to sit down. He thinks there's a good chance he's going to embarrass himself and cry. Or maybe throw up. Or both. Then again, what's a little vomit when the floor's already covered with blood anyway?

"Foggy," Matt calmly says. "Breathe."

Even now, when he's the one who caused it, Matt is trying to look out for him. Fuck him for that too, dammit. If Foggy could not breathe, just to spite him, he would.

"But," Foggy finally stammers, trying to get his head around what he knows must be true. "But I've seen you," he begins, knowing Matt will know exactly what he means.

Because he's seen Matt catch his foot on the edge of something and go sprawling. He's seen his fingers search for small things, like his glasses or his keys, or large things, like the desk or the sofa. He's watched him memorize new spaces and need to orient himself in ones he already knows. He's seen him be absolutely fucking blind.

"It's hard," Matt says, sounding as weary and pained as he looks. "It's really, really hard. I have to concentrate. Or it doesn't make any sense. It's just." He sighs and looks up at the ceiling he can't see, like maybe what he's trying to say is hiding in the wooden beams. "I don't know how to explain."

"Try."

"If I'm not completely focused, it's... a nightmare," he says. "Overwhelming and distracting and just too... too much. So much. Of everything." Matt sighs again. "If I'm not concentrating, it's useless information that doesn't make sense."

"You already said that."

"I'm trying," Matt snaps. "I'm trying to do what you asked and explain."

"So what you're saying is that you're sometimes actually blind when you're around me?"

"I'm always blind, Foggy." Matt closes his eyes. "But yes," he whispers. "With you, I don't have to..." He turns his head and not-looks at Foggy, the way he always has, as if he's somehow looking through Foggy's clothes and seeing every single bit of him uncovered and exposed, every inch and every thought and every secret. For all Foggy knows, maybe he can. Maybe Matt can see through walls or look into souls or read minds too. Nothing seems impossible anymore. "I don't have to work so hard," Matt finally says. "I can relax. I know I'm safe when I'm with you."

"No," Foggy says, getting up from his chair to pace again. "You don't get to say that. Not now. Probably not ever."

"Foggy."

"No. Don't. Just." Foggy's so angry he punches the air in Matt's general direction and watches as Matt involuntarily flinches away. "Yeah," he says. "That right there. Fuck you, too."

"Foggy," Matt says again. He says his name like it's a plea and a beg and promise, all rolled into one, and it's enough to make Foggy's eyes burn with tears again, and no. Just no. He is not going to feel badly because he is the one who's been lied to.

"Did you blow up those buildings? Shoot those cops?"

"Do you?" Matt swallows and winces. "Even need to ask that?"

He looks like the question Foggy already knows the answer to hurts even more than the blood-smeared stitches across his chest. Foggy knows he's being a dick, but he's glad it hurts. Because, well, just. Good.

"Yeah. I think I do."

Foggy sits down in time to see the tear shimmer in Matt's eye before it slides down his cheek. He clutches the arms of the chair and holds on for dear life, anything to stop him from falling to his knees and begging for forgiveness because he is being cruel, and as much as he hates Matt right now, he hates himself even more.

* * *

 

_Hours had passed, or maybe days or weeks or a century, before he slowly drifted back to consciousness like coming up from the bottom of the deep end of the pool. He laid unmoving, his eyes still closed, aware that he was no longer sweating and shivering in his bed. He felt the warm weight of Matt pressed against him and heard his voice, soft and lyrical:_

_"'Master, what is it that I hear? Who are those people so defeated by their pain?' And he to me: 'This miserable way is taken by the sorry souls of those who lived without disgrace and without praise. They now commingle with the coward angels, the company of those who were not rebels nor faithful to their God, but stood apart. The heavens, that their beauty not be lessened, have cast them out, nor will deep Hell receive them - even the wicked cannot glory in them.'"_

___"Matt," he finally said, opening his eyes in the dim quiet of their room and realizing he was in Matt's bed._

_"Welcome back," Matt said with a grin._

_"What time is it?" Foggy asked. His voice sounded weak and scratchy, and Matt handed him a glass of cold water with a bendy straw stuck in it so Foggy didn't have to sit up to take a drink. It tasted so good he moaned just a little._

_Matt reached towards his clock and fumbled until his fingers found the button. "Nine seventeen pm," said the soft, mechanical voice._

_"So I was out for an entire day?" Foggy asked._

_"Two."_

_"I don't remember," Foggy muttered, handing the empty glass back to Matt._

_"You kept insisting you were dead and burning in Hell."_

_"That's on you, buddy. Damn Catholics. I didn't know guilt-trips were contagious."_

___"I thought Dante was just the thing." Matt held up the book he was reading from._

_"Dante? Jesus."_

_"Virgil, actually."_

_"Details." Foggy sighed and snuggled closer to Matt. "Dude, I like your sexy sheets."_

_"So you've said. Twice already. After your fever broke, I thought you'd be more comfortable if I cleaned you up and changed your bed," Matt explained. "And then you wouldn't leave."_

_"Good plan," he agreed. "I'm never leaving. So what does it mean?"_

_"What does what mean?"_

_"That even the wicked cannot glory in them?"_

_"Oh. Um." Matt looked at the closed book in his hand. "It's the part people mean when they say Dante said 'The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their neutrality in times of moral crisis.'"_

_"He didn't actually say that?"_

_"No."_

_"Well, either way, that's cheerful." Foggy shifted so he could see Matt's face in the dark. "Uh-oh. I know that look."_

_"I'm not looking."_

_"Dude, you're looking. What's wrong?"_

_"I just." Matt sighed. "I just want my life to mean something. I want to help people."_

_"Says the guy who spent the past two days playing nurse to my flu-infested ass?" Foggy asked._

_"That's not what I meant." Matt shifted and looked away. "You're my best friend. Of course I would. I would do anything..." Matt sighed again, and Foggy was too tired to press for more. He just let himself relax into Matt's silk sheets and waited. "I want to make a difference," Matt finally said. "Not just to the people I care about. But to people who need a break and haven't gotten many. People who can't go anywhere else. People who really need help. And I just don't know if Landman and Zack is the best way to do that."_

_"Christ," Foggy muttered. "You're killing me."_

_"Foggy," he began._

_"It's just an internship, Matt. An internship we worked really hard to get. We can check it out. Ride the shiny elevators. Wear our new suits. No matter where we work, we can help people. We don't have to decide anything right away."_

_"You're right."_

_"Of course I'm right," Foggy agreed. "Sure, it's probably the fever talking, but that doesn't mean it's wrong."_

_"Foggy," Matt gently chided._

_"'Nough talking. Keep reading."_

_"I have to talk to read."_

_"You know what I mean," Foggy sighed as he settled his head against Matt's shoulder. "You always know exactly what I mean, buddy."_

* * *

 

"Wait." Foggy stands quite still and stares at Matt. "Are you telling me that, since I've known you, anytime I wasn't telling the truth, you knew?"

Matt's face is all the answer Foggy needs.

Jesus.

Foggy's not a liar, not about the things that matter. Mostly. But no one tells the truth all the time. Foggy thinks of all the times he stared at Matt because he knew Matt couldn't see him doing it. All the times he said everything was fine when it wasn't. When he exaggerated about the things he did with girls on dates. When he said he had enough money or enough to eat or wasn't tired or felt confident in an answer.

He always knew Matt knew him better than he knew Matt. He never harbored delusions about that. Matt obviously wanted it that way, and Foggy accepted it as the price of being friends. But this? This is a whole new level of unlevel playing field. This is Foggy not having a moment's privacy since Matt walked into their room all those years ago.

"And what?" Foggy finally asks. "You just. Played along?"

Matt has the decency to look ashamed. "Basically."

"If you weren't half dead I would kick your ass, Murdock." Foggy rushes the couch and points an accusing finger he knows Matt can see right in his face. Fuck him because he knows his breath stinks too. "Am I lying about that?"

Matt eyes are wet with tears when he softly replies, "No."

"Was anything ever real with us?"

"Foggy," Matt whispers. "Please. I didn't mean." He swallows. "I never wanted."

"To fucking lie to me? To invade my privacy? To make me question everything I thought I knew to be true? What? What exactly didn't you mean or want?"

Matt sniffs and wipes his cheek with the back of his hand. Foggy's heart breaks just a little knowing he's the cause, and then he realizes that Matt probably can tell. Probably knows all about his stupid, fucking heart, and that just pisses him off all over again.

"At first, I wasn't going to tell you," Matt quietly admits. "Because I never told anyone. But then."

He shrugs, wincing because he probably just pulled out stitches somewhere because a ninja almost killed him last night. Because he's blind but he's also the Devil of Hell's Kitchen. Jesus.

"Then what?" Foggy finally asks.

"You're you," he simply says, blinking back fresh tears. "You're you, Foggy Nelson, but by then, I didn't know what to say. I couldn't say. Because you'd think I'd lied. And I couldn't." Matt closes his eyes and lets his head rest on the back of the couch. "I couldn't lose you. So I just."

"Kept lying?"

"Yeah," Matt has the decency to agree. "I intentionally don't focus on you. Not like that. Not unless I think something's wrong and I can help. I try to let you have your secrets."

"Like you have yours?"

"I never asked for this," Matt snaps. "For any of it. It happened. It just fucking happened."

"Like the ninja-guy just happened?" Foggy asks. "Like you running around in a mask just happened?"

Matt glares at him but doesn't say anything, and Foggy isn't ready to deal with all the details of Matt's extracurricular activities. He doesn't want to think about Wilson Fisk blowing up their neighborhood or sending a fucking ninja to kill Matt. Because Matt is the fucking Devil of Hell's Kitchen. Or that Matt somehow knows how to not get killed by a ninja because an old blind man named Stick taught him how to fight. Or the fact that Karen called Matt first because something tells him Karen will always call Matt first. And then Foggy lied instead of telling her Matt was nearly killed by a ninja. And Matt knew he was lying because he could hear Foggy's heartbeat from across the room. He has always known when Foggy was lying. He has always been able to hear Foggy's heart.

He can't think about this.

The list of things he doesn't want to think about right now is long and distinguished, so he wanders into the kitchen and grabs another bottle of water for Matt. He's tempted to throw it at the back of his head, just to see what would happen. Would he sense it coming and protect himself?

Foggy loiters by the fridge, hefting the weight in his hand, and wonders how much he would hurt him if what he said was true, that he doesn't try not to be blind around Foggy. It's heavy for how small it is. Would probably cause a concussion. Maybe break open Matt's thick skull and force Foggy to call for Claire for more stitches. Unless he caught it first, which Foggy thinks would somehow be worse than him getting hit with it.

In the end, Foggy hands over the water like a normal person because he doesn't want to risk it, any of it, and pulls out his phone and texts Claire: 'He's awake. Will live to tell the tale. I've got this.'

She looked so tired and so sad, and Foggy knew she spent the night working, not sitting around like he did. She should go home, if she wants. Go to bed. No sense in everyone Matt knows being miserable because he's a lying sack of shit human lie detector asshole.

'Make sure he drinks a lot of water,' she texts back. 'And eats. I'll come if he needs me.'

Of course she will.

Foggy wants to be shitty back. Say something mean and hurtful because everyone always loves Matt more than Matt loves them, but it's not her fault. She seems nice, and she saved Matt's life, and Foggy thinks she's hurting already, in her own way. So he thanks her and adds Hotty McBurner phone to the list of things he doesn't want to think about.

Matt is just sitting there on the sofa, silently sipping his water and looking miserable, so Foggy goes back to the kitchen and starts banging around, looking for something to feed him. His kitchen has even less food than Foggy's, which is really saying something. He's eaten relish straight from the jar because sometimes that happens, but he figures Matt needs something with more substance to it. Probably protein and iron.

In the end, he calls a nearby place Matt likes that delivers. Two spinach salads, one black-and-blue with extra steak and one salmon. Beet salad. Spinach quiche. Oatmeal with apples, pecans, and dates. A couple greek yogurt parfaits. He adds six hard boiled eggs and freshly ground peanut butter and a six-pack of beer as an afterthought.

He's not paying for all this shit when it arrives.

"You hate salad," Matt quietly points out.

"They're for you."

"Thanks."

"Whatever," Foggy mutters on his way to the bathroom. "If you had fucking food, I'd cook for you." He lets the water run hot and wets a washcloth. He hands it, still steaming, to Matt. "You have blood all over."

"Thanks," Matt says again before wiping his face and neck.

Foggy rinses it when he's done and finds a zippered hoodie and a thick pair of socks. Standing in Matt's bedroom, he watches Matt sit on the sofa, not-looking at him. The socks are a lot softer than a water bottle.

He throws the rolled socks as hard as he can at Matt's head. At the last second, just before they hit him, Matt jerks to the side to avoid them. He groans and clutches his side, the movement obviously not the best thing for a newly stitched-together abdominal wound.

"Shit. Sorry," Foggy says, retrieving the socks from the other side of the sofa. "I wanted to see what you would do."

"What was that?" Matt asks as he gingerly pulls on the hoodie.

"Socks," Foggy says, handing them to Matt.

"Should have let them hit me."

"Yeah. Probably."

"You done with that now?" Matt asks.

"Probably not," Foggy honestly answers.

Matt looks sad but nods. "Okay."


End file.
